


White As

by rosekay



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fairy Tales, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-04
Updated: 2011-12-04
Packaged: 2017-10-26 21:33:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/288149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosekay/pseuds/rosekay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the middle of winter, when broad flakes of snow fell, and the dark forests were silent, the queen of a faraway land sat at her window.</p>
            </blockquote>





	White As

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for Lilja as part of Sweet Charity, posted to LJ in 2007.

*

In the middle of winter, when broad flakes of snow fell, and the dark forests were silent, the queen of a faraway land sat at her window. She was a lovely creature of sunlight and smiles, a balm to the craggy darkness of her king, and in her hand, she held the last rose of the season.

As she gazed out at the white, silent land, she accidentally pricked a finger on the rose's sharp thorns, and three drops of blood fell upon the snow. Still holding the slender stem, she looked thoughtfully at the pattern, and, one hand to her rounded belly, thought to herself, _would that my child be as white as this snow, green as this last, slender stem, and red as this blood._

And so her little boy really did grow up, his fair skin as white as snow, eyes like the stem of the winter rose, with lush cheeks and lips the hue of blood.

But the queen died only a few years afterwards, when her son was still a small boy, and the roses were not yet in bloom. The king mourned both her and their second son, a child of the spring, lost with her womb. He forced the prince to watch the shroud carried out from her chambers, so that he might know death and not flinch from it.

"Don't look back," he told the child, who stood straight under his father's gaze.

The king soon married another woman, who was very beautiful, and became queen. Some whispered that she was a sorceress, both man and woman, whose changes let her see far into the future.

She was very clever, with lovely golden eyes and a quick hand at darker things, though her beauty was bright and becoming. But brighter still was the little prince, who grew only more beautiful as the years went on, with his knowing green eyes and fair skin flushed rosy from exercise and good cheer. Only to him would the king lend his ear, for they were lonely together after the death of the old queen, and often went on long hunts, shoulder to shoulder, two soldiers in the dark wood.

Every day she would ask the king, "Tell me, husband, tell me true, who is dearer to you than I, who?"

The king's reply was always to gently touch her cheek and smile, "You are lovely indeed, but there is always my son."

Because he, charming winter child, was all that was left of the old queen, gone all these years, but the king was politic enough not to say this part, though his heart was heavy.

The queen saw her own influence slipping away, and she quietly raged until at last she put poison in the king's cup. She sat primly at his bed as he gasped his last, her golden eyes more cold than lovely now.

"It was I who killed your wife," she told him. "And when you are dead, your son."

When his eyes went sightless, she ordered that his head be cut off and mounted on her wall, so that he might see the ruin he brought on his family when he invited her into his home.

She sent for one of the castle hunters, and bade him bring her the prince's heart.

This hunter was a good man though, and a simple one, happy with his house and his dogs. He did not wish to incur the queen's wrath, but neither was he so evil that he would take the life of the king's son.

"Go," he told the prince. "Go far away, and if you value your life, do not return."

The prince was not foolish, and he knew who had killed his father so cruelly, but he saw the wisdom of the hunter's words, and agreed to bide his time.

The hunter went out into the wood and slew a great boar, his silver knife flashing to part the animal's breast and take its heart, red and lush as the blood of the prince's mother all those years ago.

The queen smiled when she saw it, the blood running fresh through her fingers. She grasped it proudly, and thrust it into the face of the king's head.

"Your precious boy," she said, touching his cold, dead cheek as he had once touched hers. His sable hair was no less dark and his face no less stony.

"Not so," he replied.

The prince had fled as he was told, running through the dark wood until the branches tore his clothes bloody, and the beasts keened all around him. But none touched him, and he was safe when he at last reached a lonely, little house. He sampled the food left out because he was a young man of hearty appetites, and immediately collapsed into one of the beds, exhausted and spent from grief.

He dreamed wild dreams of his dead mother and his dead father, his cheeks wet with tears even in his sleep. And he dreamed also of a boy, who grew tall as a tree and broke hearts with his smile.

By and by, the masters of the house returned, and they were little more than children too.

"Who has drunk my wine?" said one, a small, pretty girl with dark hair and clever eyes. Her betrothed was dead, but she kept his ring and did not yield.

"Who has eaten my bread?" cried another, a pale boy whose father had used him ill.

"Who has smoked my leaf?" demanded a third, short and cheerful, with a dangerous charm and a brother who leaned over his shoulder, wondering.

At length they found the prince, lovely and pale as snow, asleep in one of their beds.

"How red his cheeks," said the girl.

"And his lips," said the pale boy.

"And look, how green his eyes," the leaf smoker said, when these eyes opened to stare at them.

The prince told them his sad story, and they listened, not ignorant of the queen and her evil ways.

"The sorceress with yellow eyes," whispered a fourth boy, pale and distraught. "She used to walk in my dreams."

"She has marked us all," explained the girl, "so that we must live alone here in the wood, away from our families and the greater world. Do you dream too, of strange and terrible things?"

The prince replied that he always dreamed of a boy, tall as a tree, and of his mother and father, both dead now by the sorceress' hands.

"Well that is something," said the pale boy, and they all agreed to let him stay, because he was so beautiful, and touched by grief as the they all were.

"She will be looking for you," warned the girl, "so do not open the door while we are gone."

The prince agreed that this was a good plan, and set about straightening the house and cooking the food in return for their kindness.

The first day, there came a knock on the door. It was a girl, small and lovely, with golden curls and dark, kind eyes.

"She seems a nice sort of person," thought the prince, who was no monk, and had a weakness for such pretty girls, so he unlatched the door to greet her.

"I'm here to see you," she told him with a sweet grin.

"Are you?" the prince smiled back, a little crooked.

"Yes," and she leaned up for a kiss.

He felt the poison on her lips almost immediately, his knees beginning to weaken and his hands beginning to shake.

"Who are you?" he said as he fell against the door.

"Your father the king killed my father," said the girl, no longer so sweet. "The woman with yellow eyes promised me my vengeance."

The children of the house returned to find the prince sprawled across the threshold, still as death, the lovely flush gone from his cheeks and lips and his green eyes closed to the world.

Luckily, the poison had only touched his lips and rendered him senseless, not dead. When he awoke at last, heaving a breath, the dark haired girl chided him.

"The queen must have sent her. You must not open the door."

The prince agreed. That night he dreamed again of the tall boy, and also of the golden haired girl, so pared down and brittle from her rage.

When the queen received the story of the girl's success, she turned to the head of the king.

"Tell me, husband, and tell me true, who is dearer to you than I, who?" she mocked, flushed with success.

"My son," said king's head. "He lives still."

The blood ran cold in her heart with spite and malice to hear this news, and she threw her wine glass against the wall, a rich, dark stain on the stone.

"I'll do the deed myself, then."

She put on the king's old clothes and his face, not so difficult a task with the arts she had at hand, and journeyed herself to the little house in the woods.

When the second knock came, the prince resolved not to open the door, but curious, he went to the window to see who it was. The familiar figure of the king nearly made his heart stop, and he threw the latch open in joy.

"My boy," said the queen, though she wore another's face, and she embraced the prince.

"Your clothes are in such disarray, my boy, so unlike royalty. Let me help you, and then we may return to the castle."

"But what of the sorceress?" asked the prince.

"Do not worry," the lady replied with the king's low voice, and she measured a length of cloth against the prince's neck as if for a fitting, and then drew him close, winding the red cloth against the snowy throat.

"Father, what - " when the prince looked up, he saw that there were golden eyes in his father's face, and that it was not his father at all. But it was too late now, for the red cloth was already tightened, choking the life out of the king's son, slowly and sweetly at the sorceress' relish.

"Beautiful boy," she said, "so trusting of your father. Must you be so beautiful even in death?"

His eyes fluttered as he struggled for breath, heart in a rage, but there was little he could do, held so tightly in his father's arms, the sorceress' clever hand winding itself between his legs, cruel and greedy.

"Stupid boy," she said. "Just like your mother."

She leaned in for a kiss just as the last breath slipped out of him.

Luckily, the children returned to the house early that night, and carefully unwound the red cloth so the prince could breathe again.

"This is becoming a distressing pattern," remarked the pale boy. "Really, you must not open the latch."

The prince nodded, robbed of his voice. That night he dreamed of his childhood, the gentle hand of his father and his stern voice. He wept for the loss, but the tall boy came again, taking his hands and looking up to him.

"Our mother misses you," he said, and the prince wondered what he meant.

When the queen returned to her chambers, she looked again upon the head of the king.

"Tell me, husband, tell me true, who is dearer to you than I, who?"

The king cursed her for her evil trick, and she laughed, but the dead cannot lie, so he added, "My son. He lives still."

The prince was wary at the third knock, but he went to look again, and nearly died of shock to see the tall boy from his dreams standing straight by the door.

"I cannot open it. I'm sorry," he rasped.

"Our mother," said the boy, sounding young. "She misses you."

The prince was so shocked at hearing these words that, once again, he unlatched the door.

"Who are you?"

The tall boy smiled and embraced him, "I'm home."

He held out an apple, red as the prince's cheeks, beautiful and plump, a fruit of sin.

"Take a bite, and you'll be home."

The boy's eyes looked so sincere that the prince could only listen to him, and he closed his eyes as his teeth sank into the pale flesh of the fruit.

The boy began to laugh, and the prince saw now that his eyes were yellow too. No boy, but the queen again.

When she returned this time, the head of the king at last replied, "It is so. He is dead."

The children found him on the doorstep, still as death. They combed his hair, and washed his snowy limbs, fed him wine and water, but he would not wake for anything.

They wept for three whole days at this new evil of the sorceress, and the prince remained silent, his cheeks and lips as red as they had always been, his skin just as a pale.

"We cannot bury him in the cold ground," said the dark haired girl at last, so they fashioned him a glass coffin and wrote upon it his name in looping, golden script.

For many seasons, the prince rested in his coffin, always guarded by one of the children, and the rumors of this strange beauty traveled to faraway lands.

One day, a prince rode up to the little house, and though they did not know, this prince was the very tall boy who had inhabited the dreams of the dead one.

He read the script upon the coffin and looked in at the lovely face, the still body.

"Our mother missed you," he said sadly, for this prince was none other than the king's younger son, thought to be dead all these years with his mother. She, clever woman, had not died at all, but fled back to the kingdom of her birth when she realized the sorceress' intent. Still, the younger prince was marked, and always destined to return to this place, to these children, among whom he truly belonged in a way his brother did not. His mother was dead now too, of grief at the news of her older son, lost to her twice now, and he had come searching across all the lands.

He begged them for the coffin, but they refused to part with it, not for all the gold in the world.

At last, he revealed the story of their shared blood, their dead father and dead mother, and, in time, the children relented.

The moment he lifted his brother from the coffin, the piece of apple fell from his lips, and he awoke, as if from a long sleep.

"Where am I?" he said, rubbing his eyes.

"Home," replied the younger prince. "I have dreamed of you all these years." And he kissed his brother sweetly, one hand cupping the rosy cheek, their mother's winter rose.

They rode together to their mother's old castle, and a great feast was thrown to celebrate the two princes, united at last. The queen, now ruler of all the dead king's lands, was of course invited. As she robed herself, she spoke again to the king.

"Tell me, husband, tell me true, who is dearer to you than I, who?"

"My sons," said the king, for the dead could not lie. "They live still."

The queen went to the feast only to see both brothers circling her like tawny lions, fierce and angry. Arrayed around them were the children from the little house, marked by darkness these many years. They fell upon her, creature with the yellow eyes, and she let out a last shriek before she died.

The brothers gently gathered the rest of their father's body, and laid him to rest beside their mother. They rewarded the children of the house with great riches and new lands for their help.

At the end of the day, they returned to their chamber, child of the winter and child of the spring, twined together in their mother's bed.

*

 **~the end**


End file.
